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Pg 105-Chapter 13- “Let’s face it. We all bring our judgmental baggage into our adult church experience. And there’s already a denominational bias in place in whichever church we land”.

This is the sad nature of having so many different groups within Christianity. Whatever group we cut our teeth on in our childhood, we will bring that bias with us as we move on to new groups. Rules and rituals from our past will lead to a judging attitude toward others. We need to focus on the “simpler” parts of faith. The Trinity would be the starting point.

A quote from the book that speaks to what early believers were wanting and doing to live out their spiritual walk. How would you describe what their walk consisted of?

Pg 104-Chapter 13- “There were no hoops for these people to jump through. There were no leaders to please, no rituals to observe. (If anything, rituals were bypassed.) It’s a way we need to return to. And our children need it, too. We all need the simpler way of Christ”.

Spiritual Superiority is an ugly bi-product of the current system under the banner of Protestantism. This is the major theme of “A Simpler Faith” and what brought me to write the book. It is not enough that we have the cross of Jesus Christ as our bedrock. We need to show “other groups” how we are closer to God’s true design for his church. We need to be more right then anyone else.

Pg 76-Chapter 8- “First, believers need the freedom, courage, and honesty to assess what is spiritually essential and what is not. That means looking squarely at the manmade elements in the church that have divided rather than united us”.

Do we really have the ability to say enough to the extra’s without being ridiculed for our push back? It seems to me most believers would be scared to be that honest in the church. If we can not be honest there, then we have created a system that is destined for failure.

Pg 56-Chapter 5- “If the Old Guard wants to tell the Newbies to shut up, they’d better be prepared to do something more than just stand on the sidelines and mock or critique what the Newbies are doing. They need to be willing to provide an example of grace for the Newbies to emulate”.

In this chapter I explain the difference between Newbies and Old Guard. Simply put, these are the two main groups that cause much of the bickering within the church. Old mainline mentality verse new evangelical aggressiveness. These two would rather bicker over the differences then kneel together at the cross.

Pg 41- Chapter 3- “There’s a road leading away from church that’s littered with dead faith. And it’s not the road that did the killing”.

Comment- It is sad how a lot of the hurt that happens is actually from within the walls of the church. Believer to believer or leader towards congregate. People are always at the heart of the pain. I meet every week with someone who has to process the hurt and work to reconnect with community.

Pg 18-Forward- “The church is at its most ridiculous when denominations try to prove themselves more right than others.”

I tried to point out in the book just how foolish we can look when we spend our time bickering and fighting instead of reaching out and supporting each other across denominational lines. The onlooking world see’s disfunction instead of Christ-like love. That is our bad.